With our nation’s Independence Day holiday this week, it’s appropriate to reflect back on history.

Mediation has a long history worldwide. In North America, Native American and First Nations peoples are believed to use consensus-based council meetings led by elders to resolve disputes. In the colonies, religious groups—most notably Quakers and Puritans—used voluntary and informal dispute resolution, so it can be argued that much of the early use of mediation in the colonies was based on their practices.

The Quaker belief of sharing or relinquishing power, rather than acquiring it, encouraged parties in conflict to view the mediator as trustworthy. Quaker mediators had a genuine respect and concern for the parties in conflict and worked to help them change the way they perceived their adversaries, themselves and the conflict. And, in fact, particularly in the middle colonies, civil suits were frowned upon as mediation was the preferred method of dispute resolution.

The use of mediation faded into the background as the country developed. In 1831, the 26 year-old French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville toured the young United States and observed the growing acceptance of extreme individualism. And with this extreme individualism Americans were more likely to turn to the courts to advocate for their self interest rather than consensus.

It wasn’t until the violent labor disputes of the late 19th century that the U.S. Congress then brought mediation back to the forefront. In 1913 Congress established the U.S. Department of Labor and a panel called the “commissioners of conciliation” to handle disputes between labor and management. This became the U.S. Conciliation Service and in 1947 the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service or FMCS.

The expertise the FMCS developed and became the model for contemporary mediation in the United States that is commonly used today.

I was once asked to mediate a court referred dispute between renters and a landlord over failure to do necessary repairs.

When the first met with the parties I found the renters to be a couple in their late-20s and the landlord to be a woman in her mid-80s. In that jurisdiction, as mediators receive no information about the case before the mediation, I began as usual with an introduction to the process and then by asking the plaintiffs, in this case the young couple, to describe the dispute. The first to speak said that she had grown up in the house next door and had known the landlord all her life. The second to speak described long needed extensive repairs to the house and their attempts to get the landlord to approve and promise to pay for the work. The landlord appeared to me to be confused by the situation and upon questions from me said that the house was in fine shape when she and her late husband had lived there.

At this point I needed to assure myself that the mediation would be a fair process. Ethically, I need to be assured that the parties are able to meaningfully and fully participate in the process and to make informed decisions for themselves. I asked the landlord if she would like someone to help her. She said yes. I then stopped the mediation and had her referred to an Office for the Aging.

i did so because issues involving the elderly can include challenges in communication, competency and even forms of abuse. There are obvious concerns about hearing and vision issues resulting in a party needing assistance. A mediator needs be assured that the party understands the issues and any relevant documents. In this case, I did ask the landlord to tell me what she understood her lease with the tenants to say about repairs. Her answer gave me insight as to her being fully able to participate in her best interest.

Finally, the mediator need be alert to the possibility of elder abuse. Most elder abuse involves people the older person trusts. Abuse can be physical as well as financial. According to a 2017 FBI report, some 50,000 people over 60 lost $343 million from financial exploitation and scams. The total cost of unreported abuse is much higher.

Weeks later I was the mediator on the same case, but this time the landlord had the assistance of an attorney from her local Office for the Aging. Her attorney helped her understand the dispute and the mediation process. As the mediator I only needed assurance that she understood and approved any decisions.

In that mediation it became clear that the renters had been defrauding the landlord by volunteering to deposit the rent directly to her bank account, when they were actually making reduced payments.

The mediation was the first step in righting this wrong.